Girls Weekend 2011 Blog #4: Sandy Bread

“Our memories of the ocean will linger on, long after our footprints in the sand are gone.” ~Anonymous

Two quick things...In case you missed any of my prior Girls Weekend posts, just click here to see them all! To read Blonde Oklahoma Girl's posts on the trip, click here!

So Saturday was a little bit more of a laid back, play it by ear, low key sort of day. The first reason for this is that we were all freaking exhaused from the insanity that was Napa and karaoke the night before, and the second was that the next morning we would be running and I knew that if I was going to make the 13.1 miles, I would have to behave on Saturday!

We started out the morning meeting up with Gonzaga Friend and heading to the Farmer's Market. I'm telling y'all, if you are ever in San Francisco on a Saturday morning, this is a MUST do! You talk about amazingly fresh fruits and veggies, nuts and honey, baked goods, goat cheese, bread, flowers....you name it, they have it. We had a great time just taking in the beauty of the market and picking out our picnic cuisine!

After the market, we headed for the SF Marathon packet pick up to get our numbers and race shirts. I am pretty darn in love with the half marathon shirt--it's orange (it's fate!!) with the bridge on the front, 13.1 on the back, and the marathon theme "Worth the Hurt" on the sleeve.

While we were there, I saw this tank top and thought it was awesome. TOTALLY kicking myself for not buying it! It says "Half marathon....I like it because it's shorter and I'm lazy like that."
After that, we headed for the beach at the Hyde Street Pier. We had big plans to hit up Baker Beach---probably the most beautiful spot in the City (and one portion of which is a nude beach, which both scared and intrigued the Oklahoma Girls!) but we were starving and tired and decided to just go with the closer option.

We, of course, took some ocean side shots.
My favorite is this one below---Loud Oklahoma Girl and I were attempting to jump and College Roomie was going to take a shot with us up in the air. Well, as we were jumping, the tide came in and we ended up landing in the freezing cold water soaking ourselves. I absolutely love this picture!
The picnic was one of those things that may have been better in theory--you know, in your mind when you sit at home on our couch. We did have yummy food----fresh strawberries, black berries, grapes and peaches, shaved parmesean cheese, jalapeno jack cheese, sourdough bread, salami....but, alas, the wind sort of covered our yummy food in sand.

Things did get better when we moved from the beach to a bench overlooking Ghirirdelli Square, but the sand blasting damage was done. Whatev. In the words of the nice homeless man who we gave our leftover bread too when I warned him it might be a little sandy, "A little salt never hurt anyone." I like people with a positive attitude.
So....we also spent a lot of time on public transportation, entertaining people on the bus with our thoughts on "if we were prostitutes" and "If you select green as a wedding color I am not wearing your dress" type of discussions.
And we ended the night with a "carb loading" meal at an amazing Italian restaurant in Pacific Heights called Luisas. We're talking homeade pastas, wonderful salads, and great wine (of which we did not partake--we were trying to be hard core runners, and our livers were still getting over the day before!)

Stay tuned for tomorrow----race day!

From the beach eating bread, cheese and fruit all covered in sand.....

Xoxo,

Gossip Girls!

Photos of the Week: Weeks 30 and 31

Well due to the insanity that was Girls Weekend 2011 - San Francisco, I'm way behind on uploading my photo challenge shots. (If you missed the first three Girls Weekend recaps, do yourselves a favor and click here, here and here. Seriously...best trip ever. You'll hear much more this week). Anyway, we have LOTS of photos to get to. You probably won't be suprised that this week's photos are all from the trip. Here we go!

As always, I'd love to hear which one is YOUR favorite!

Theme: Anything (Quotography)

Y'all know this is always my favorite quotography theme! I thought and thought about what photo and quote I would use to sum up our trip. I think that this combo does a pretty darn good job of accomplishing that goal! Be sure to check out the other quotes/photos at My Perspective!

Theme: Friendship (I Heart Faces)

This is my first time linking up to this challenge, but the theme was friendship and because I love the photo so much, I'm entering this one of my favorite ladies (same as above just without the quote). Check out all of the other entries here!

Theme: Forest Green (Project 64)

After our lunch in Napa, we decided to go walking around town to see the sights and shoot some pictures. I was playing with the focus on the camera and got this shot. Although my original idea was to focus on the rose and blur the vines, I actually loved how this came out and knew I wanted to use it for this week's Project 64 shot! I think the red adds a great splash of color to the forest green vines, but mostly I love that a screw up on my part ended up in something beautiful! Check out the other entries here.

Theme: Raw Sienna (Project 64)

Well I totally missed last week's link up, but I wanted to be sure and share my shot because I'm almost halfway through the crayon box and I don't want to stop now! This was one of the tasting set ups at a winery in Napa. To see all of the other raw sienna entries from last week, just click here!

Theme: Show Off Your Shot

Well this is a new photo challenge that I'm partaking in over at "And then, she snapped." (Love that title!) I loved that you can choose your favorite photo of the week and don't have to stick to a theme. I really liked this shot of grape vines in Napa. If you look closely, you will actually see the bundles of grapes growing! Be sure to check out the other entries here!

Theme: Aqua

I thought this dress was a perfect shade of aqua for this week's Live Every Moment challenge. On the trip, my goal was to snap one photo of each of the girls that really showed them.....their personality and their spirit and everything captured in a picture. Fortunately for me, my friends are gorgeous, which made this much easier! This was that shot for the Blonde Oklahoma Girl. Only problem? She doesn't like it that much. But I love it, and it's my blog, so it's posted! :) Check out the other entries on Friday! (P.S.--you'll see the other girls' photos soon in an upcoming blog about our friendship that I'm excited to share!)

Theme: Shapes

I tossed around lots of ideas for this theme, but ended up choosing this random statue we saw at lunch on our wine tasting trip. I love the colors!

Theme: Splish Splash Water

The perfect photo for this theme was, sadly, not taken by me since I'm actually in the photo. Sigh. Don't worry, you'll see it on tomorrow's blog. Instead, I went with a picture of the San Francisco Bay and the Golden Gate Bridge. I added a black and white edit just becuase it was a foggy, sort of dreary day and I loved the feel of this---sort of like something from decades ago!

Theme: Summer

For this girl, summer = farmers markets! As you've read before, the one at the Ferry Building in San Francisco is my favorite of them all. I loved this shot of the beautiful sunflowers with the busy market goers in the background.

Theme: Time

I love the clock tower at the Ferry Building. It's one of those things that screams San Francisco to me, so I knew it would be great for the "time" theme this week! My favorite part is the bright blue sky with the fog just starting the roll in.

Girls Weekend 2011 Blog #3: Karaoke Stars

"Those who danced were thought to be insane by those who did not hear the music." ~Angela Monet

Quick commercial break.....remember Miss Canada? Well she's hosting a giveaway of Ty Christian Wilson's debut album on her blog.....enter here!! If she's giving it away, you know it's good--she won a freaking Canadian CMA you know!

Okay now back to the trip. When I told people that we were planning to spend one night of our trip at a karaoke bar, lots of people have commented that it seems very random to go to San Francisco and do somethign you can do at your local bowling alley. Well, I blame Georgia Boy for this being so high on my list.

When we were summer associates together, we all went karaoking one night and had so much fun. And Georgia Boy was a rock star at it. So....I knew we had to do this again and it made sense for our mini summer associate reunion to involve karaoke! (Note to self.....wear heels in pictures so you don't look like a midget!)
The night started with dinner at Osha, a great Thai restaurant with the girls and several people who I worked with as a summer associate. It was great to catch up with everyone! (I got no pictures....fail!)

And then after dinner...the real fun started. Enter Silver Cloud karaoke bar. It was sort of a dive in the Marina--nothing fancy, tons of typos in the song list (i.e. Pasty rather than Patsy Cline, Toxie by Brittney Spears instead of Toxic...you get the idea).

And the cast for the evening included:

Georgia Boy and his wife, Superwoman

Gonzaga Friend

Word Up Bro (who as you learned yesterday we met earlier that day..told you he was up for anything!)

And the four of us.

I knew it would be fun, but Oh. My. Double. Gosh. (Totally our new saying thanks to Word Up Bro!) It was just beyond a blast! I'll let the pictures do the talking.

The night started with a Black Eyed Peas duet between College Roomie and Word Up Bro. And they were right....tonight was going to be a good night! Even when the stupid screen screwed up and they didn't know the words....I have to tell you that I as shocked to see College Roomie on stage first. I mean don't get me wrong, obviously I know she's fun...she's my best friend and all! But I love that she, the quiet, calm, reserved one of the group, got right up there and rocked it out.
And then, the saddest part of the evening was that Georgia Boy can't read. He determined there was no Johnny Cash in the song book, which meant he couldn't do his signature song, Folsom Prison Blues. Well, we learned later that they did, in fact, have like 10 Johnny Cash songs in the book, including Folsom Prison. When some other dude sang it, I thought that Georgia Boy might have a heart attack.

Instead, he signed up for The Gambler. Turns out, he didn't know any words but the chorus. He sang a lot about not knowing the words, actually. :) But have no fear, he redeemed himself when he sang the Beach Boy's "California Girls" with Word Up Bro and the place went wild!

Then it was time for the Gossip Girls to do our thing. Song selection? Sweet Caroline. Karaoke classic. We rocked it out. And back at the table, Word Up Bro taught everyone that when we sang the verse "Good times never seemed so good" that they should scream as loud as possible "I don't believe ya, you're making it up!" Apparently it's a European thing?

Next up, Word Up Bro sang a great rendition of some song I don't remember. Here were the girls watching the show. Put a crazy fun dude with a Scottish accent on the stage, and we're mesmerized!

And then, it was time for the Brittney tribute. Superwoman selected Toxie (i.e. Toxic, in properly spelled English) for our song. I can assure you, I knew 5 words of the song. Did I care? No way---we just had a blast up there! Georgia Boy has video....I'm hoping that Superwoman ensures that gets burned.

Then there was the Snoop Dogg incident. We were on stage singing "Mama's Don't Let Your Babies Grow Up To Be Cowboys" and this random dude comes on stage, joins us, and seriously knows the song better than us. He proceeds to tell College Roomie that Snoop just walked by. She tells me and I, being responsible (and nosey) jump off the stage, chase the dude down, only to learn it was not, in fact, Snoop. Apparently there are lots of liars in San Francisco. Remember that for my upcoming blog about the race...

Anyway, for our final song recap, we have a duet that was planned during the bus trip home from Napa. An emotional tribute, if you will. "Tried to make me to go rehab, I said no, no, no...." Oh yes, they did.

The night ended with lots of crazy events including the worst shots ever (so bad I couldn't even put it in my mouth for fear of getting sick), followed by a make up for the last one being so bad drink from the bartender (much better!), an almost fight with the music guy for playing the wrong song, having to do some major detective work to determine the location of Word Up Bro's hotel, some near inappropriate comments from Georgia Boy in the car about my physical therapy experience and his wife's prior marathons, and stopping in a field because, well, when a girl's gotta go, she's gotta go.You know those nights where everything just works? Everyone has a great time together, no matter how different they are or how well they know each other. And no one worries about how they look or what other people think, they just let loose and do their thing? When you look around and realize how lucky you are to have these people in your life? Those nights when life is....just good. That was karaoke night in San Francisco.

Stay tuned tomorrow for a picnic on the beach!

From the dive karaoke bar in the Marina where we sang our hearts out....

Xoxo,

Gossip Girls!

Girls Weekend 2011 Blog #2: Napa and The Gossip Girls

"Try as much as possible to be wholly alive, with all your might, and when you laugh, laugh like hell and when you get angry, get good and angry. Try to be alive. You will be dead soon enough.” ~William Saroyan

Well we started off Girls Weekend 2011 with a wine tasting trip to Napa. Even before we left on our trip, I said to the girls that we would be "those girls" on the bus who were loud and having fun and the life of the party. I mean, we pretty much are always those girls. Well, we did not disappoint.

I have tried for like an hour to put into words how much fun this day was, only to decide there are no words. I'm doing my best to just summarize and hit the high points.

It all really started with this photo:

We asked a random guy standing around from our tour group to take the picture, and a friendship was born. Turns out, he and the guy he was there with had discussed on the bus who they would befriend on the trip...they thought we seemed fun, so they chose us and deemed us "The Gossip Girls." (Ironic that they name four backwoodsy country girls this considering that the show is about rich brats in Manhattan!) Anyway we were inseparable for the rest of the day. They moved to sit by us on the bus, fed us chocolate pretzels that they remarked, "Tasted somewhat like dog biscuits, but were actually quite good," informed us that Alec Baldwin was "gorgeous" and that Australians hate kangaroos.

Turns out these crazy fellas were a ton of fun and up for anything. We have named them The Swan (in blue) because he is from Australia and we tasted a wine named after the eye of some Australian swan. (This made more sense on our 4th glass of wine at the 3rd winery....) The other (in pink) is called Word Up Bro because that saying, via Spencer on the Hills, is his favorite American term. (NOTE: There is a chance that they will have a guest starring role in Meet the Cast Monday....let's all encourage them to join in!)

In addition to this friendship, we struck up friendships with lots of people on the bus...the nice couple from Texas after commenting on the man's full quill boots, the woman from Minnesota who was an attorney and does yearly girls trips herself, the two girls who didn't speak English, but loved me because I showed them free chocolate at one winery, the angry Canadian woman who cussed out Carrie Underwood for "stealing" Mike Fisher, the grandma and 10 year old grandson who could only smell the wine....we met them all.

And they loved us. The bus driver, however, did not. In fact, during one heated discussion of college football involving us, The Swan, Word Up Bro, and the man from Texas with the boots, the bus driver totally called us out on the microphone for being loud and distracting and yelled at us for 10 minutes. Jerkface. How could you yell at these faces?

Whatev. He got a pretty measly tip after that. Anyhow, we toured 3 wineries....

First was Madonna Estates, an organic winery between Napa and Sonoma. Wines were good, but sort of expensive. I liked to Pinot Grigio the best.

Next was Sutter Home Winery. The downside to this winery was that it's not a vineyard....which honestly seeing the vineyards is my favorite part of wine tasting. But, they had all sorts of snacks, the best wine of the three, a beautiful garden, and this good looking wine server. We hit it off with him right away when the Blonde Oklahoma Girl announced to the group that one of the wines "tasted like Christmas." Who knows.

Did I buy some wine? Yes. I LOVED the 2010 White Zinfandel Reserve and the Moscato. Did I get the cute wine server's email address? Yes. Are we now facebook friends? Yes. (Look hot tall he is....sigh!)

Then we took a little lunch break in some small town between Napa and Sonoma. We had lunch with our new friends (of course) and had a great time chatting and asking questions about our different countries and jobs and travel experiences...all in all...perfect lunch!

After this, we were off to Sebastiani Vineyards in Sonoma. This tour was the best because they really explained the winemaking process and grape growing and you know that was right up this farm girl's alley. I liked their wines the least of the 3 wineries, but Loud Oklahoma Girl, who is much more a red wine fan than I am, liked them the best. Go figure.

Like I said, words don't do it justice. It was the perfect day---beautiful weather, great new friends, hilarious quotes and stories and sayings, great food and wine----it really was perfect.

That's it for now, but stay tuned. Karaoke night is up next.

From Napa Valley, California with wine glasses in hand....

Xoxo,

Gossip Girls!

Girls Weekend 2011 Blog #1 - The Miracle

I know y'all are probably wondering if I'm still alive----the answer is yes! I had THE best time ever in San Francisco. Napa, karaoke, the Half Marathon.....seriously, it could not have been more fun! Stay tuned for multiple blogs about that. But for now, I leave you with this quote from John Bingham:

The miracle isn't that I finished.

The miracle is that I had the courage to start.

But, that said, the video of me crossing hte finish line is pretty darn amazing. Watch it here---you'll hear my friends screaming their heads off (I don't call her Loud Oklahoma Girl for nothing!) and I'll be on the lefthand side in a black shirt and orange shorts.